Who Are You Becoming?

A single phrase from a previous episode sent Eric into an existential tailspin, and reshaped how he thinks about organizational identity.

Most organizations can tell you their goals. They can rattle off their theory of change, their five-year plan, their success metrics. But ask them who they are becoming, and the room goes quiet.

It’s a deceptively simple question, and it lands differently than anything in a strategic plan. Goals describe outcomes. Vision statements describe aspirations. But “who are we becoming” is identity-level. It’s personal. It implies growth, imperfection, and a direction you haven’t fully arrived at yet. And in a sector defined by impossible expectations and limited resources, that kind of honest self-reflection is both rare and powerful.

In this episode, Eric and Jonathan dig into why this one question has become a centerpiece of how they think about organizational growth, leadership, and daily decision-making. They explore what happens when you answer it honestly: the clarity it creates, the dissonance it reveals, and the follow-up question that turns aspiration into action: “What would I do differently if I were already that?” They also wrestle with how the question scales — from individual leaders, to teams, to the social impact sector as a whole — and why right now might be the most important time to ask it.

If you’ve ever felt stuck between where your organization is and where you know it could be, or if the phrase “strategic plan” makes you feel more tired than inspired, this episode’s worth your time.

Episode Highlights:

[00:01:30] The phrase that triggered an existential crisis 
[00:02:00] Why "becoming" reframes identity, not just strategy 
[00:03:00] Using the question with prospective partners and clients 
[00:05:00] Who is Cosmic becoming? 
[00:05:30] The follow-up: "What would I do differently if I were already that?" 
[00:07:00] Every decision is a vote for who you're becoming 
[00:09:00] What happens when you don't choose who you're becoming 
[00:11:00] How the question stops leaders mid-conversation 
[00:14:30] Permission to acknowledge you're not there yet 
[00:16:00] Using the question as a management and leadership tool 
[00:18:00] Facing the gap between who you are and who you want to be 
[00:21:00] Scaling the question from individual to sector-wide

Notable Quotes:

Eric Ressler [00:05:30]: “The next question that I ask myself is, ‘Well, what would I do differently if I were already that?’ And that’s where I think it becomes extremely powerful.”

Jonathan Hicken [00:06:55]: “Every action I take, every decision I make as an individual is sort of a vote for who I’m becoming. And that’s something I can center myself on, that’s something I can decide where I’m headed.”

Eric Ressler [00:09:30]: “If you don’t have a clear sense of who you want to become, you are inevitably going to become someone else’s version of you.”

Jonathan Hicken [00:10:00]: “Build the culture you want or you’ll inevitably get the one you don’t.”

Eric Ressler [00:14:40]: “As soon as you’re satisfied, you’re behind. And I don’t mean that in a hustle culture kind of way. I mean it in the craft, like excellence, like pursuit of growth: deep, meaningful, even potentially spiritual growth.”

P.S. — Struggling to align your message with your mission? We help social impact leaders like you build trust-building brands through authentic storytelling, thoughtful design, and digital strategy that works. Let’s talk about your goals »

Full Transcript:

Eric Ressler [00:00:00]: One of the ways that I’ve thought about this before is every choice that you make, every decision that you make, every email that you send, it’s basically either moving you closer or further from who you are becoming.

Jonathan Hicken [00:00:15]: I think so frequently we think of organizations as rigid and not able to evolve and grow and become like this entity with an identity even of itself. And so by framing it as something that we are becoming, you’re acknowledging imperfection, you’re acknowledging growth, you’re acknowledging a direction and a conviction. It feels very human.

Eric Ressler [00:00:35]: To me, this is the perfect time for the sector to be asking that. There’s so much changing in the world, in the sector, with how funding is happening. There’s a huge generational shift happening in culture at large. We do all owe it to ourselves in this sector to think about who are we becoming as a sector.

Jonathan Hicken [00:00:55]: Build the culture you want or you’ll inevitably get the one you don’t.

Eric Ressler [00:01:00]: Yep.

Jonathan Hicken [00:01:00]: Because if you’re not clear about who you’re becoming as the team, you’re almost certainly going to get something that you didn’t want to begin with.

Eric Ressler [00:01:10]: I’m Eric Ressler.

Jonathan Hicken [00:01:10]: I’m Jonathan Hicken.

Eric Ressler [00:01:15]: And this is Designing Tomorrow.Jonathan, I haven’t even really shared this with you yet, but we did a pod a couple weeks ago and it threw me into an existential tailspin.

Jonathan Hicken [00:01:20]: Okay. All right.

Eric Ressler [00:01:20]: So thanks for that, buddy.

Jonathan Hicken [00:01:22]: You’re welcome. I don’t even know what I said.

Eric Ressler [00:01:25]: So we were talking about who you were becoming as an organization and you used that exact phrase, “We are becoming.” And this actually came through our work together. But something about the way that you said it and the way that it hit my brain in that moment, it threw me for a loop because it begged the question for me, who are we becoming at Cosmic? And I found that I was not satisfied with my answer.

Jonathan Hicken [00:01:50]: Fascinating.

Eric Ressler [00:01:55]: And that was what gave me the existential spin. And so what I realized in that is that that is an extremely powerful framing for that question, which is a question that could be asked in so many different ways. What’s your desired future state? What are your goals? What’s your success metrics? Where are you going? What’s your business plan? What’s your theory of change? But something about the “who are we becoming” just changes the framing in a way that I think is exceptionally powerful.

Jonathan Hicken [00:02:25]: Literally in the case for support we did together, the front page, the headline is “We Are Becoming.” And I agree that is a powerful story because it communicates growth, it communicates transition, it communicates directionality, it communicates conviction, it communicates growth and learning and flexibility. There’s a lot in that word “becoming” that I have found powerful and I’m using it all the time.

Eric Ressler [00:02:55]: Yeah. And I think it implies a lot of the things that you just mentioned. And what it really triggered in me is that I haven’t been thinking about our work in that way as a brand. Who are we becoming as a brand? I’ve been thinking a lot more about who are we working with and what’s our business model and what do we say yes and no to? And these things that are also really important. But when I started to ask myself, who are we becoming? I found that I didn’t have as much clarity or even that I hadn’t really thought about that in far too long. So I want to tease that out as a really powerful framing. By the way, I’ve started using this question as people are approaching us for partnership and the answers I’m getting are incredible and it’s literally stopping people in their tracks.

I used to ask things like, “What are your goals? Where do you wish you would be in a year? What does that look like? What would have to be true for you to be really happy in three years?” There’s all these future framing questions that I’ve used to try and get here, but something about this exact framing, this exact phrase even, really hits people in a different way. And I think it feels more personal.

Jonathan Hicken [00:04:05]: It does.

Eric Ressler [00:04:05]: It feels more like identity in the way that it’s framed, which I think is partly what makes it powerful. So I want to riff on this a little bit today and talk about why this question is so powerful and maybe even help listeners figure out how they might be able to ask themselves that question and some of the downstream questions they should ask themselves as a way to frame their growth as an organization.

Jonathan Hicken [00:04:30]: I’m all in. This is fascinating.

Eric Ressler [00:04:35]: All right. Well, first, let’s see if I can answer who I think we’re becoming.

Jonathan Hicken [00:04:35]: Yeah. Eric, who is Cosmic becoming?

Eric Ressler [00:04:40]: So when I really break down who we’re becoming, and I thought about this deeply, this is the tailspin part. I think that we are becoming one of the world-class creative agencies for the social impact space.

Jonathan Hicken [00:04:50]: Hell yeah, I get it.

Eric Ressler [00:04:55]: And you might feel like that’s aspirational or that’s a little vague or whatever, or what does that even mean to look like? And we can get into how do you define what you’re becoming in a little bit. But to me, that is really what I’m trying to do. And I have other things I’m trying to do too personally and professionally, even with the show, which I consider to be essentially a professional passion project more than anything else in support of becoming that though. What it really started to get me thinking about is that is an incredible way to think about where we’re going. And here’s, I think, the true power that it unlocks. The next question that I ask myself is, “Well, what would I do differently if I were already that?” And that’s where I think it becomes extremely powerful.

Jonathan Hicken [00:05:35]: Answer that question.

Eric Ressler [00:05:40]: What would I specifically do? Yeah. Well, I could get into some specifics, but it’s everything from what opportunities are right fit for us or not, to how do I show up as a leader to how do I show up even on this show? It really, to me, frames the entire way that I show up individually as a leader, as a person in my life, and how we show up as an organization and just how we act. I think so much of embodying any kind of vision is about how you show up every day and act in those micro decisions. And one of the ways that I’ve thought about this before, which is both very freeing and can be paralyzing if you’re not careful, is every choice that you make, every decision that you make, every email that you send, it’s basically either moving you closer or further from who you are becoming. You don’t want to go so far to this where it becomes “fake it till you make it,” but honestly, I would lean more that way than not.

Jonathan Hicken [00:06:40]: This really reminds me of a conversation I’ve actually had with my therapist. And I think this actually maybe gets to what you were saying a minute ago about the question of “who are you becoming” feeling more identity based. Because every action I take, every decision I make as an individual is a vote for who I’m becoming. And that’s something I can center myself on, that’s something I can decide where I’m headed as an individual. And that feels really real. It feels like human beings, we grow, we evolve, we change, we respond. And as long as I know who I’m becoming, I can make those choices day to day that move me down that path. But I think so frequently we think of organizations as more rigid and not able to evolve and grow and become like this entity with an identity even of itself. And so by framing it as something that we are becoming, you’re acknowledging imperfection, you’re acknowledging growth, you’re acknowledging a direction and a conviction to make a vote for who you’re becoming with every decision you make and every email you send. It feels very human.

Eric Ressler [00:07:55]: I think that’s right. And I think in a certain way, that’s why I said it can be very empowering, right? Because what you can realize is that you have agency that — I think there’s sometimes, especially in this space, these meta narratives around — and these narratives are rooted in truth, but these meta narratives around structural issues, right? These barriers, these inequalities. And without discounting that, I think that if you start to embody too much of that way of thinking, you are giving up your own power and your own agency to change those structures and those barriers. And I’m not saying every org and every leader out there needs to be doing systems change work, but I think we have to be really aware of that because — and I’ve found myself in this position before too where, oh, the agency space is messed up and AI is eating everything and SEO is changing and last year the sector was frozen and all these excuses, these limiting beliefs that if you’re not careful, they start to really infect you in your daily decisions and how you show up.

And maybe partly because I feel like personally I am coming out of this early parenthood cocoon to some degree, some days more than others, and having to reckon with who am I becoming in my second half of life. And it’s all convergent with the agency because it’s really hard for me to separate myself from the work because I’m so embedded in it. And so I’m doing this personally and professionally at the same time. And what I realized is if you don’t have a clear sense of who you want to become, you are inevitably going to become someone else’s version of you because of the structures or your coworkers or who you’re spending time with. And I think it’s really important to have clarity around who you want to become.

Jonathan Hicken [00:09:45]: This is reminding me of a quote, and I can’t remember who to attribute it to, so I’m really sorry about that. But there’s a quote about culture building and organizational building, and the quote was, “Build the culture you want or you’ll inevitably get the one you don’t.” And it’s the same thing, right? Because if you’re not clear about who you’re becoming as a team, you’re almost certainly going to get something that you didn’t want to begin with. And I feel like that translates to an organizational strategy or identity is you have to know what you’re becoming so that you can make those decisions day to day.

Eric Ressler [00:10:20]: Yeah. And I think that what, again, to double down on this idea, I want to acknowledge that this is easier said than done. And so much of this is not even just knowing who you’re becoming, but having the conviction and the courage to actually act that way over and over and over and over again, especially when it feels the hardest, that’s when you have to do it the most.

Jonathan Hicken [00:10:45]: Let me go back to, you said that you’ve been asking clients this question a bunch, and without naming names, can you describe some of the responses or reactions that you’ve gotten to this question?

Eric Ressler [00:10:50]: Yeah. I would say the biggest reaction that I get is it feels like the most human moment in the conversation. People literally pause and stop and think, and not in a “Oh, I’m unprepared” way. It’s like, whoa, that stopped me in my everyday autopilot mode that I might be in interviewing multiple agencies or whatever. And so it’s a really powerful question. So the biggest theme is that it’s a conversation stopper in a positive way.

Jonathan Hicken [00:11:30]: And it forces a presence. It forces a reflection.

Eric Ressler [00:11:35]: Yes. Yeah.

Eric Ressler [00:11:35]: And I think it leads to people thinking more deeply, thinking outside of the strategic plan, thinking outside of even their mission and vision, thinking outside of even what some of the success metrics of any particular project might look like. And so for me as an agency owner and a creative director that so much of my job is helping people understand who they are, a lot of understanding who you are is understanding who you are becoming at the same time. And so it gives me this really insightful contextual element to this that gives me more clarity around if it’s a fit or not at the minimum, but also more like, is this something I want to be part of? Do I feel inspired to help this org or this leader become this new thing?

Jonathan Hicken [00:13:15]: We may have actually already answered this question in the conversation so far, but I wonder why a question like “who are you becoming” hits differently than a question of “what’s your vision” or “where are you headed in the next five years?” I think where my mind goes is it has something to do with this humanizing thing. It allows for vulnerability, allows for fallibility and it’s like there’s this space to acknowledge that we’re not perfect and we’re not where we want to be yet, but there is a commitment and a positive momentum towards that thing, which is a very human thing to do. And I certainly feel that a lot with being a parent, right? Because I’ve got a six year old, our kids are about the same age, three days apart, and I think a lot about who I am becoming as a parent so that I can be the best. And a lot of that is humbling because you know that you’re not perfect and you know you’ve made mistakes and you wonder how that’s going to impact your kid. And I feel like in an organizational sense too, it allows for that humility and a little bit of that space.

Eric Ressler [00:14:25]: Yeah. I think it’s permission too, right? It’s permission to acknowledge that you are not where you want to be yet. And I think that’s good. I think that if you are doing this work especially, you should basically never be satisfied. As soon as you’re satisfied, you’re behind. And I don’t mean that in a hustle culture way. I mean it in the craft, excellence, pursuit of growth, not in terms of revenue necessarily or headcount, but deep, meaningful, even potentially spiritual growth. And I think that one of the things that is so powerful about this that can be really hard, I will just say, is that the bigger swing you take with who you want to become, the bigger the gap is between who you are and who you’re trying to become. And the more you’re going to have to face where you are falling short of that.

Jonathan Hicken [00:15:20]: Dude, you know what? I think this is an amazing question to ask someone on your team, no matter what area of the business they’re in, if you’re helping someone grow and that’s part of who you want to be as a leader, asking someone, “Who are you becoming here?” or “Who are you becoming in your career?” I don’t know. This is just hitting me right now. That’s a really powerful management leadership question.

Eric Ressler [00:15:50]: Yeah. I hadn’t really thought about it that way, but I agree. And I think that I’ve always framed this as, who are you becoming as an org, as a team for your mission? But I think it could be equally powerful to your point as a management tool. What makes it hard, and I think what we need to be careful about, let’s just start with the management side is, are we giving people the space and the tools and the support systems to become something else? And are we doing that in a real way and not just piling on this like, “Yo, dude, you want me to get all this stuff done and now you’re asking me who I’m becoming too?” Come on, right? So not to shut the idea down, but I think we just have to acknowledge that, and I know that that’s the kind of leader that you are and that you have a team that has that agency and that space to have permission to fail or whatever. But I think we have to be careful about it in the social impact space where so many times expectations are impossible to meet.

Jonathan Hicken [00:16:55]: More, more, more. Sure. More, more.

Eric Ressler [00:17:00]: More, more. Absolutely. The other thing though I do want to talk about is I’ve been reflecting on this question both personally and for the org and what I’ve learned in doing that is that it’s hard at the very beginning because you see that dissonance, that gap between where you are right now that you got to be brutally honest about. Part of this is you have to be willing to let your guard down a little bit and acknowledge where you’re strong and where you’re not. And then you have that future state, who we want to become, this north star, what does it look like for me to become one of the leading, most world-class creative agencies for the social impact space? Which by the way, I will say, I feel like we’re pretty close.

Jonathan Hicken [00:17:40]: Yeah. Yeah, I really do.

Eric Ressler [00:17:45]: And I don’t mean that in a “Oh, we’re better than everyone else.” I have a lot of peers in this space I highly respect, I look up to, I admire, I talk to, and I welcome them. I don’t think this is a zero sum game at all. And yet I know that there’s work to do, right? And what I noticed is when I really decided that is it for us, that is who we are becoming and start to share that with my team, immediately you start to realize all the things that you’re doing that are not in alignment with that. That’s not how a world-class creative agency in the social impact space would act. Well, I should probably change that and I don’t need to wait. I don’t need to wait to change some of those things. And you have to balance this, but I think there’s a lot of excuses that we, and limiting beliefs and reasons why we can’t that get in the way of us actually becoming the things we want to become.

Jonathan Hicken [00:18:35]: So how often do we need to ask ourselves this question?

Eric Ressler [00:18:35]: Every single day. And I think what I’ve noticed is that it’s almost like a mantra or context setting. I wake up and look, I’m not perfect at this and I’m not suggesting you have to be either, but you should aim to do it every single day. And when you start your day, it’s a nice little setting the scene for the day. Who am I becoming and now what do I do with that? And now when I look at my to-do list or I look at my calendar, is that in service of that or is it not? And you might even want to start by writing down everything that you are commonly doing in your daily and weekly life personally and at work. And is it moving me towards or away from that version of who I am becoming?

Jonathan Hicken [00:19:20]: So apparently I said this thing that threw you into a tailspin. But honestly, I think you reflecting it back to me has also gotten me hyped up about the power of this and how to start to use it for myself as an individual, but also for the team. And I often talk with my team about stop, start, or keep doing. This is a prioritization exercise and we often align those priorities to goals or outcomes. And I’m wondering in this moment if in fact we should try aligning that exercise to this question of who are we becoming?

Eric Ressler [00:20:00]: Absolutely.

Jonathan Hicken [00:20:00]: Man. Yeah, I’m going to try it. I’m going to try it and then I’ll report back.

Eric Ressler [00:20:05]: Well, so I think what you have now is you have a really good, clear answer about who you’re becoming in this moment. And that might be different in three years. Maybe it even should be different. I think it depends how quickly you get to that version of who you’re becoming. But yeah, I do think it is a nice litmus test for everything that you’re doing and you could use your productivity framework of start, stop, or pause for every action that you take. And you don’t want to go so detailed with this that it starts to become — there’s limiting returns on this at a certain point. But I found myself reflecting on every day, what do I do? Is this the highest leverage thing that I could be doing in service of who I am becoming? Yeah, sometimes you got to do some busy work, it’s not always going to be perfect, but every day you’re working on it and you’re shedding and you’re evolving and you’re refocusing. That’s how you get there.

Jonathan Hicken [00:20:55]: You know what’s cool, man, is this is an infinitely scalable question too, because I started by saying, “Hey, you could apply this to an individual,” but I also think you could ask this of the sector. What are we becoming collectively? What does that mean? Right? I mean, isn’t that like ...

Eric Ressler [00:21:15]: I mean, honestly, to me, this is the perfect time for the sector to be asking that. There’s so much changing in the world politically, in the sector, with how funding is happening. There’s a huge generational shift happening in culture at large.

Jonathan Hicken [00:21:30]: Economically.

Eric Ressler [00:21:30]: Economically, the global order is changing, unfortunately, largely in bad ways, in my opinion, but I do feel like we are on the precipice of a new major version of the sector. And I think we do all owe it to ourselves in this sector to think about who are we becoming as a sector. So yeah, I love the scalability of this down to the micro all the way up to the macroist of macro.

Jonathan Hicken [00:21:50]: Yeah. If we’re going to start a meetup group, maybe we need to call it “Becoming” or something. Something like that. Yeah.

Eric Ressler [00:22:00]: I mean, it’s a powerful question. So I think for our listeners, think about this. Think about it deeply. Take it to your team, get everyone to do it individually and bring it together and have a conversation around that. I think it’s a super powerful alignment exercise and something about the phrasing has some sort of magic secret sauce to it. And I’ve experienced it myself. I’ve experienced it in asking different social impact leaders and it stopped all of them in their tracks in one way. Words are powerful, man, and the way you frame things are powerful. So hopefully this has some good takeaways for our listeners today.

Jonathan Hicken [00:22:35]: This is awesome, Eric. I really, really appreciate the topic.

Eric Ressler [00:22:35]: Awesome. Thanks, Jonathan. Thanks for the existential crisis.

Jonathan Hicken [00:22:40]: By the way. You’re welcome.

Eric Ressler [00:22:40]: I need one every six months or so.

Jonathan Hicken [00:22:40]: All right. Thanks, Eric.

Eric Ressler [00:22:45]: If you enjoyed today’s video, please be sure to hit like and subscribe or even leave us a comment. It really helps. Thank you. And thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.